Since I only have a few minutes between urchin 1.0 going to bed and the wife and urchin 2.0 getting home from a little party, I'll recap what the last 48 hours have been like around here.

First, I spent Tuesday night/Wednesday morning recovering from the second thorocentesis in 11 days.

Then, the wife wakes up Wednesday morning with flu like symptoms. Well, it was more than that since she was throwing up and had a fever. Let's go ahead and say that she had the actual flu.

As any dad would do, I took charge of urchins 1.0 and 2.0 whilst the wife attempts to recover by sleeping, despite urchin 1.0's best efforts. I got urchin 1.0 to school while the wife was still able to stand, but she was dismissed to the upstairs shortly after my return home.

I advised her to take up resting in the guest room. No, it doesn't have any tv, but I live in the other room, and I'd prefer to avoid this strain of the flu if at all possible. I've got my own medical crosses to bear you know.

Urchin 2.0 begins throwing up after eating. Out of three holes. Not nice at all. And on my favorite shirt. Twice. This is not good.

The wife called the pediatrician, who informed us that it was almost impossible for urchin 2.0 to have the flu, and that it must be something else. They then asked how much we were feeding the urchin. We replied "About four ounces per feeding. Is that right?"

"Ummm...no. That's too much. She throwing up because she's full. Don't feed her more than three ounces."

Boy, do we rule at this parenting thing or what?

The wife finally started to feel better around midnight Wednesday.

Thursday morning we were awakened to frequent power flickers, complete with multiple wireless phone beepings every time the power came back on. This happened about 15 times between 5am and 8am.

The power finally goes out for good around 8:30am or so, leaving us like pioneers with a 3 year old that doesn't give a shit about the electricity, she just wants to know why the lights, Christmas tree, her computer, the tv, the DVD player, and the oven aren't working. (Sometimes there's no reasoning with kids).

Urchin 1.0 decides to become ADD and tourette's syndrome-ish all at once, and urchin 2.0 decides to only eat an ounce at a time every 90 minutes, never burp and leave un GODLY shits all day.

The power finally returned around 2:30pm or so, or maybe it was 10am tomorrow. I have no idea, but it was the longest seven hours of our married lives.

At one point Lauren was acting so crazy that I actually told her that if she didn't settle down I was going to hit her over the head with a shovel.

She was unfazed.

Wife agreed to take urchin 2.0 with her to a party to "give me a break for Wednesday," only to have urchin 1.0 go fucking nuts and start crying about not staying home for a Madagascar frozen dinner AND not going to dinner with uncle todd, nick and jack.

That's right. She was hysterical about both. If I lived near a bridge abutment, you wouldn't be reading this, as I'd have driven into it on the way to dinner.

Finally, Lauren agreed to eat at Beef O'Bradys. I had the chicken caesar and a cold beer and she had the kids nuggets and fries and a pack of oreos. When done, she started crying about her fucking Madagascar dinner again. Thankfully, no bridges were nearby.

Oh, and to top it off, she had to pee while we were there. So I took her into the men's room and into the only stall to a commode with one of those split front seats that require little girls to sit sideways, which we've done many times before.

This time, however, she stopped paying attention, let her arms go limp and I watched her fall into the fucking toilet.

Father of the year right here.

So that's it. Since giving in to Allstate about my September accident in which I had no fault whatsoever, things have gotten worse. And the only reason I did that is for karmic protection.

All I have to say is that if one more thing even moderately annoying happens to this family, someone's gonna pay.

(Seriously, I'm kidding about the threats. But come on folks. Enough's enough).

The good news is that I'm down to 215 pounds. Another four pounds and I'll see a weight that hasn't been seen since I returned from Auburn in 1989 with my Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior fifteens attached.

Stay tuned. I fully expect to wake up with pink eye, an abscessed tooth and the gout, all the while pissing out of my ass for no reason in particular. It seems to be my destiny.